In my quest to become a better photographer, I am getting into a phase where I want to do as little post work as possible.  Not because I am über lazy – that’s an aside, but because I want to shoot as pure as possible.  I want to point my D700 at something pretty, grab the shot and then upload it to Flickr, or where ever – no middle man.

Defining SOOC (for me)

Every photographer has their own idea what it means to shoot straight out of the camera (SOOC).  For the purpose of today’s post, I’ll give you my definition:

• Image shot RAW – WB applied at import (you have more control this way)
• Photoshop used to add border or text / copyright
• Filters (on camera) are OK (Cokin Filter System)

That’s it.  There are no color curves, high pass filters, color boosting, etc.  The only thing I apply post is the WB (and of course the copyright text).  The image above is an example of my SOOC standards.

Why Shoot SOOC?

For me, it’s an inner challenge.  Photoshop (PS) can become a crutch for shooting poor.  You can adjust your exposure, adjust your colors, brightness, take out annoying artifacts or other objects, deepen tonal contrasts… you get the idea.  Don’t get me wrong, use PS CS4 all the time to adjust my curves of nature shots to bring out highlights and shadows.  You can really make a good picture great with a few adjustment.  Also, while shooting on the D80 with lesser glass, I always used PS CS4 to high pass and/or smart sharpen some areas.  I am finding with my newer glass and D700, this is not a necessity, though I do it out of habit quite a bit.  Wanting to stop that.

So, this challenge for me is to become a better shooter, not a better post-production engineer.  I want to learn to use the power of the D700 to see the shot and take it in the final form.  It forces me to learn better camera control.  Better use of light metering, better framing of my subject, using a tripod to get the shot tack sharp right out of the barrel.

The shot here was done without a tripod, but the shutter was quick enough to have it sharp.  The colors and sharpness are right from the camera.  The text and border was added, but that’s all that went on.

Why Photoshop Then?

Because sometimes good just isn’t good enough.  Sometimes there was a bug that flew into a perfect shot.  PS can whack it.  Sometimes you screwed up your exposure to an otherwise clean shot.  You can fix that (when shooting RAW).  Sometimes, that extra little punch of color will really make a photo scream.  All that happened on the shot to the right.

This shot was done with Cokin filters (Tobacco Z125 GND8) at 24mm for 1 second.  The color is from the filter on the camera, not from post work.  It was a little muted from how I saw it through the view-finder, so my post work involved putting it back to how my eye saw it.

Also, a mosquito landed on the filter during the exposure – right in the nice blue water.  Other than the little smudge he made while walking around, it was a clean shot.  So, the power of the healing brush healed his ass right out of the scene.

Patience

I think patience is what I need most.  I always look back to purist Edward Weston.  He didn’t shoot digital.  He didn’t have Photoshop to clean up his mistakes.  He shot and developed in a dark room.  Yes, you can tweak contrasts that way (think Ansel Adams), but Weston was a purist.  I am not turning myself down that road, but I really want to be exposed to shooting RAW and clean.  It won’t be all the time though, as I really love the extra boost of color, contrast or sharpness that PS can give you.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010 at 10:14 am and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.